MACKEREL. 125 



Sunday in 1698, and the practice prevails to tlie present 

 time. 



At our various fishing-towns on the coast, the Mackerel 

 season is one of great bustle and activity. The frequent 

 departures and arrivals of boats at this time form a lively 

 contrast to the more ordinary routine of other periods ; the 

 high price obtained for the early cargoes, and the large 

 return gained generally from the enormous numbers of this 

 fish sometimes captured in a single night, being the in- 

 ducement to great exertions. A few particulars from va- 

 rious sources may not be uninteresting. 



In May 1807, the first Brighton boat-load of Mackerel 

 sold at Billingsgate for forty guineas per hundred, seven 

 shillings each, reckoning six score to a hundred ; the highest 

 price ever known at that market. The next boat-load produced 

 but thirteen guineas per hundred. Mackerel were so plenti- 

 ful at Dover in 1808, that they were sold sixty for a shilling. 

 At Brighton, in June of the same year, the shoal of Mack- 

 erel was so great, that one of the boats had the meshes of 

 her nets so completely occupied by them, that it was impos- 

 sible to drag them in ; the fish and nets therefore, in the 

 end, sunk together ; the fishermen thereby- sustaining a loss 

 of nearly 60/., exclusive of what the cargo, could it have 

 been got into the boat, would have produced. The success 

 of the fishery in 1821 was beyond all precedent. The value 

 of the catch of sixteen boats from Lowestoffe, on the 30th 

 of June, amounted to 5S52/. ; and it is supposed that there 

 was no less an amount than 14,000/. altogether realized by 

 the owners and men concerned in the fishery of the Suffolk 

 coast.* In March 1833, on a Sunday, four Hastings 1 boats 



* In an interesting and useful sketch of the Natural History of Yarmouth 

 and its neighbourhood, by C. and J. Paget, it is stated at page 16, that, in 1823, 

 one hundred and forty-two lasts of Mackerel were taken there. A last is ten 

 thousand. 



